﻿A Brief Sketch of the Floods in the Ohio River. 105 



were not included. The difficulty arises in sifting, in separating the wheat 

 from the chaff, and in allotting to each its proper value, without exag- 

 gerating its influence. 



A record of the floods in the Ohio River will be found below in the 

 order of their occurrences: In 1858 the gauge at the Cincinnati Water 

 Works was established, and all records since that time are taken by that 

 standard. The figures given before that time are from well -authenticated 

 marks reduced to the Water Works standard. The gauge at the Water 

 Works corresponds as nearly as possible with the depth of water on the 

 Four Mile Bar above Cincinnati, and was as nearly exact as it was possible 

 to make it when the standard was established. 



The greater apparent frequency of high water in recent years may be 

 due, in part, to the more accurate records. Yet allowing a great deal for 

 this, there still seems to be a greater frequency in recent years than can be 

 wholly accounted for in that way. 



Reference to the list of floods at once shows that since 1858, when the 

 records were begun, the river has reached more than forty feet each year. 

 It is only in those floods of fifty feet or more that danger and damage 

 occur, so that those are the ones which interest us particularly. 



FLOODS IN THE OHIO RIVER OP FIFTY FEET OR MORE. 



1774. — It is traditional that in March of this year there was a great 

 flood in the Ohio. 



American Pioneer, Vol. I., p. 345, says of Joseph and Samuel Martin: 

 " The following winter the two brothers hunted on the Big Kanawha. 

 Some time in March, 1774, they reached the mouth of the river on their 

 return. They were detained here by a remarkably high freshet in the 

 Ohio River, which, from certain fixed marks on Wheeling Creek, is sup- 

 posed to have been equal to that of February, 1832." 



1778-9. — John Cleves Symmes, in a letter to Col. Dayton, dated North 

 Bend, May, 1789, says, that the whole country thereabout had been in- 

 undated, and that " the season was remarkable for the amazing height of 

 the water in the Ohio, being many feet higher than had been known since 

 the white people had come into Kentucky. "' 



MEMORANDA BY JUDGE GOFORTH READS THUS : 



" September 25, 1789, Major Stiles, old Mr. Bealer and myself took the 

 depth of the Ohio River, and found that there was 57 feet of water in the 

 channel, and that the water was 55. feet lower at that time than it was at 

 that uncommonly high freshet last winter. The water at the high flood 



